the creative process within

whenever i'm writing something creative, be it a backstory of some fantasy idea i have, or flavor text, or even designing a card, i become restless. i jump around, stand on my seat, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, while i'm thinking. well, you can say i was nervous - after all, it is my work.

which is why i had to rerap (re-sing, in "yuh"'s case) and rewrite "yuh" and "my band" extensively and continuously. earlier today i was silently rapping "my band" over and over because i had to match the cadence and the syllabication of the original. a few words crossed out here and there, another shortened, another lengthened. after one filipino, CL, and physics period of crossing out here and there, rhyming, and rapping, the final version is up and running. (if you don't know where it is, i won't tell you if you can't guess.)

trust me, martija-moran studios will live longer than you think, as long as there are targets. (right now, we're not hiring since we're already not having an easy time collaborating because we're in different sections. hence why "yuh" and "my band" modifications were mostly written by me, while "hollaback girl" and "drop it like it's hot" modifications were mostly written by leiron. i did fix the chorus for the latter, though.)

batu-bato sa langit, ang tamaan wag magalit >:)

who could give me a good answer?

another question to society, this time to the so-called "middle" to "upper" class.

in this school, or at least, within my circle of friends, there is usually a mindset about the population of the philippines. sort of like a less-restricted caste system. there is usually the "politician", then the "uber-rich", then us, then the much-maligned "jologs".

jologs. jologs. can anyone come up with a good etymology for the word?

probably everyone i know is associating the term with something bad; something they don't wanna be. but then, what or whoever gave us the right to label these people? because we're better off than them? because some of them work under/for us? and then, there is a perception among some people i know that some thing depreciates if it's something popular with the masses. why? because everyone is talking about it? because it's considered in mint condition if only a sacred few know about it? yeah, i understand that typical masa music is plain bad (i.e. novelty songs), but i've known some to have better taste than that.

they're human. they have feelings. please. they may smell bad or look bad and stuff, but they're just as human as you and i.

this discrimination is no worse than when white people were discriminating african-americans back then. (well, okay, slightly less worse. but it's still there nonetheless.)

look, i suffer from this syndrome as well, but i'm also aware that they're people, too. they don't deserve to be labeled.

i may be in the wrong here in some parts. if i am, tell me. but i still stand for the belief that they don't deserve to be discriminated, labeled, and associated negatively.

bismillah

the most popular song in the world.

if poor minds really just talk about people, then only a few in this world are very rich

a question to society.

why does society, including myself, revel so much in news, factoids, or plain goings-on about other people? or to be more specific, heterosexual pairings? is it because the intrigues of a pair of other people are so entertaining? is it because of excitement for news about two lives quite different from our own? is it because of scorn? of disgust? or is it because of optimism in the direction of the two paired people?

an ordinary single person doesn't make for much exciting news, while the latest pair of man and woman together, confirmed, not confirmed, or even plain false, make for the juiciest bit of news. people close to any of the persons in question will start mockery. these are the usual rituals whenever there is talk of a new couple.

i say, why can't we just leave them alone? it's hard, i know and understand, but they do deserve their own privacy. and if it's not even real yet (merely in the form of rumors and/or playful speculation) try not to bother.

wala. it's been bugging me, because it's noticeably the nastiest habit of society. i mean, society rarely spares couples that don't want to be shoved into a limelight, or couples that aren't really couples but has been "labeled" by society as couples.

it's entertainment, i'll give you that, but entertainers, voluntary or involuntary, are still people.

put your arms around meeh

looks like i'm foregoing all sense of doing homework. okay lang yan!

so i did go to church. the thing is my mind was floating everywhere, but mostly on ravnica and the upcoming standard scene come october 20.

it was also during mass when my father pointed out mang boy zavalla. not like you know him, but he's a local sax player. (at least that what my dad says. okay, let's call him a musician then.) father also told me that mang boy is starting a sta. rosa city orchestra (i hate the new name. sta rosa city. it's still the same rural town i love to walk around in.) and he's offering me a spot. frankly i'm not that flattered because they're offering me that spot because i can play sax, not because i can play sax good. pero what the heck - it's more credentials.

so then i go to my late uncle's wake. (well, would he have a wake if he was still alive?) it was an incomplete moran gathering, without my favorite cousins, and we left early. (cremation would be tomorrow anyway.) my ate lala (who closely resembles jam) did a double-take because she didn't know who "romeo moran III" was kasi maganda yung handwriting nya. ;) my other little cousin, whom my dad likes to tease as gay behind his back, was there.

that cousin of mine's grandfather, which is my granduncle (the term isn't used these days), is very anti-gay. here's an anecdote my dad shared about him. (my dad was a child when this happened.)

one day, my granduncle told my dad to come along with him; he was going somewhere. they went to a gay kid's house, and my granduncle shouted and looked for him. when he did find him, he beat him up relentlessly! the kid was begging for mercy but my granduncle wouldn't stop; he was too enraged about the kid being gay.

apparently the kid was one of our relatives, if i'm not mistaken.

ahh, ang pamilya moran talaga. :P

why's it not as tempting as going to, say, town?

my father just told me that we would be attending mass at 4:30. at those words, i'm crestfallen. i think it's another hour of my weekend wasted.

call me a bad christian, but in all honesty and seriousness, i do not appeal to going mass on a weekend.

why? i'm lazy. i'm dragging my feet to church. i don't know why, pero di talaga ako ginaganahan. i'd rather talk to God using my thoughts while i'm lying down in bed, which is what i usually do.

this is just me, and i usually survive these things. then again what makes it more dull is the fact that my father is an aglipayan, not a roman catholic. so hearing it from him makes me want to throw something at him for a short while. then again, i have no religious discriminations (at least i think i don't) so that one is rather uncalled for.

but really, can anyone tell me why going to church is not as tempting as going to town?

"haters in the club, back up"

that's the last line i said in my toast to julian. why, because diomampolution has his back.

anyway, the retreat (i prefer to call it a retreat than anything else, but it also qualifies as a party, celebration, and sleepover) was so much fun. i wish we'd do it again. summer, preferrably.

and since, of course, i'm a kind person, i won't subject you to reading a long novel if you're not willing to. kaya nga may cut eh.

we were off to hacienda de ysmael (that's pronounced hathienda de ythmael, if my spanish serves me correctly) at around 5:30, i think, while we stopped by KFC at SLEX (tawa na, rod) to get a bucket o' chicken. all along the trip we were listening to the ready-for-release diomampolution compilation 2 cd, which contains snippets of soundtracks for fight night round 2, def jam: fight for NY, smackdown vs. raw, lion king II, and that LSYC cd.

seeing that the sta. rosa exit was choked with traffic, we took the new one that leads straight to paseo de sta. rosa (i was like, "wow!" because i'd never taken that exit before) and straight inside technopark. tamang-tama.

yeah, i know. tama lang.

moving on, we arrived at the house (to be perfectly honest, i expected it to be a little bit bigger. mark bitong kasi, eh.) at around 6. julian's mother wasn't home yet (and wasn't going to be for the next six hours) so, we unpacked and went upstairs to play. tekken 5, def jam, sims 2 (yahoo) the usual. after dinner it would still be the same, aside from watching summerslam and then finally retiring to the guest room at 2 am. thing is we were watching a bad copy of scary movie 2 until 3 am.

"jveeh... pipicturan ka namin ha?"

"uy, si matt hardy! YAAY!" (if you don't get it, i'll happily emulate tomorrow)

"uy, cleavage ni ******!"

despite my pestering, julian wouldn't let us watch the vcds on the bottom rack! grr. :P

so i got three hours of sleep (it showed in my red eyes when i woke up) and we had a little tekken and def jam before breakfast. (tulog pa sila jv and julian eh.) this went on and we played the raunchy god of war until rod and his troop arrived at around 10 am. after that it was all tekken and swimming.

"welcome to the rivers of hell. you will ride three laps in these rivers on a small inflated dinghy. after the first lap, you will encounter several tormented souls of hell that will try to capsize your boat and sodomize you. to aid them in doing this, they will needlessly chant 'save us!' over and over."

panaghoy sa suba starring mark diomampo :P

i love those sugar donuts.

kyle: "pepi, i read your blog. i was moved."

anyway, mark and i got out of the pool rather early and took showers. i returned downstairs (after taking a shower, of course, you silly bastard) to the game room to the sound of russell's horrendous singing, afterwhich i headed back upstairs to play some titans. (i was able to make the AI surrender in 28 minutes. beat that, sucka.)

after a fun lunch i went back upstairs for more games. at that point it was pretty much free-for-all until 4 pm where we headed down to the country club for some basketball. marvin, bakaw ka talaga.

mark, russell and myself called it quits after one hour (leiron didn't even last five minutes, and he wasn't playing) and we made a sneaky entrance. kahit kailan malakas talaga boses ni leiron. everyone knows it, and sir alfonso knows it. :P i took another shower and re-emerged undetected yet again.

russell, mark, we can be robbers!

it was a while until the others returned from the court; from that point on it was just pretty much tekken and everything until dinnertime.

we had such a fun dinner outside. we took a lot of pictures and had our usual fill of food and jokes. before leaving we took the last round of pics, some of which can be found on julian's lj. i had to join the convoy just to drop off at paseo de sta. rosa. during the trip we had our last-minute jokes. and guess what? it wasn't even 5 minutes when jv was sleeping again.

and the rest, as they say, is history.

we need another retreat. soon.

"if it was monday tomorrow, we'd all be fucked."

your games are unmatched at 12:33 AM

don't bother trying to fool me at midnight, because my logic is currently unmatchable.

and this is how you repay him?

he's given you his loyalty, he's given you his house and shared his comfort zone, and now you don't want to go to his birthday?

clearly only a few are making actual effort to grab permission to go. to those who won't, shame on you, this is his birthday. i'm not naming names here. the guy is heavily disappointed that despite his plans and design, only a few are trying hard to get permission.

at least, for the few of us that will be there, we're going to make this special.

could you sleep easy at night knowing...

...that you honestly earned your money but it's not enough to get you through tomorrow, or that you can survive tomorrow with money you stole?

that seems to be the moral question in pickpocketers of a (personal) good cause. because earning money honestly never seems to be enough to get you through a day in a world of high costs, stealing money, unfortunately, has to be the way to go for the lower masses. it's sad, isn't it?

anyway, there's a huge demonstration in the people power monument. clearly, you rallying people are all wrong - in the wrong place for the wrong cause.

haven't you considered that instead of rallying to bring gma down, you guys can actually be working and earning money? there is a special irony that you don't realize when, if you are successful in overthrowing gma via protest, you guys complain that you never earned much while she was president.

clearly, "politics of the phillipine islands" is chock-full of dramatic irony.

the aftermath

what usually comes after a straining final exam and the after-celebrations is the fallout. and one part of this fallout is the giving of the test scores. (the other part is card distribution, but now i'm no longer scared of that.)

i'm actually somewhat confident that i'll get some more-than-decent scores in both math subjects, and i'm only half-scared of the actual decent scores, but there's one test score i'm nervous about. i'm actually pretty nervous about my cl score; it only hit me now that i might fail.

yeah, i did review (to some extent) for CL, looking over my long tests and remembering understanding what was wrong and right with my answers, and even participating in the last-minute review leiron, russell, and i had during recess, but it seemed that once i looked over the CL questionnaire come thursday i realized that only few of what i've reviewed actually appeared in the test. i did use my common sense, of course, and i also disagreed with infallibility. (i wonder if sir's for infallibility; if he is, i'll be damned) i don't think anyone read the gospel for the test, as well.

ah, basta. i hope i pass that one. i'm not asking for a julian grade, just one that's decent. i already assume, given my performance, that i'm not getting a line of 7 this time around.

sometimes there are things that are really worth staying 25 more years in prison for

last day of the finals today. everyone was cramming while i was totally relaxed. but then, just because i was relaxed didn't mean i was actually prepared. (it's great to be kicking back and be all smiles when everyone else is frantic)

the unusual thing was, as the algebra papers were being distributed, people were still reviewing. the more unusual part there was that they were actually still cramming for fil. isn't it weird?

anyway, we watched the longest yard today. seryoso you should watch it. amidst all the shits, bastards, assholes, fucks, and any other element that would not qualify it for being a family movie, there is an inspirational message. it's also a small documentary on the brutality of prison guards and discrimination of inmates, and nfl street "the movie" given a backstory.

there were also a lot of cameos. rob schneider, bizar of D12, goldberg, et cetera. well... goldberg's really not a cameo since he was actually part of the cast.

i mean, seryoso, you should watch it. it's funny, it's emotional, it's adrenaline-pumped - ah basta, just watch it!